Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 176 | Opening Weekend Series Recaps!

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

Series Recaps are back! We're recapping the Eastern (5:10), Central, and Western Regions (15:50) from this weekend. We've got a whole bunch of standout performances (27:20) and En Fuego players (32:20). We've got to put some guys on Slump Watch (40:20) and who got mad watch (45:00). Finally we give out our awards (49:30) and do Elevator Talk (1:00:10). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to talking baseball. It is the first series recap episode of the summer. Let's do it. Here we go. Baseball. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. This is the series recap episode.

My name's Jimmy. Jake's sitting next to me, producer BB, the in the corner. And I want to start off the show right away, Jake. Right away. There's a huge situation with the Marlins going on. I think 40% of the staff and. players got COVID. Incredibly scary situation for Marlins players and teams for baseball.

Their game is canceled. This is the series recap episode. This isn't the news episode. Trev will be on. We record tomorrow. It'll be out the next day for news talk. This episode is nitty, gritty baseball stats, recaps. Who did this?

Who did that? If you were with us last year during these episodes, they're a lot of fun. They're quick. and there's a ton of info. So, well, I mean, they're not quick in length, but they're quick in rapid fire segment. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Jake, how was the baseball for you?

It was good, man. It was really good. It was an awesome weekend. And this Marlins news, I'll be honest, was a little bit of took the wind out of my sales. And that sucks, man. And you just hope everyone's okay, A. And then, you know, I mean, you hope MLB has something planned

out for this. So we'll see what goes on there. But yeah, man, it was a sports weekend for me, which is all I've wanted for so long. Saturday was great. I mean, flipping game to game. Even Jakey UFC snuck in late just for bonus sports. But yeah, man, I mean, this baseball weekend was incredible. And it was just funny seeing my takes evolve through the weekend. Like, you know, not to give too much away, but after the Kikel start in the White Sox game, I was like, you know what? Maybe I should have been given this White Sox team a little more love. And they get drummed by the twins the next day and lose the series. So it was a sports weekend, and that's what I liked about it, Jim.

Sports, sports, sports. No, yeah, it's great. And I think production value, a lot of the broadcasts felt normal enough. There's some technical difficulties with audio and visual. I don't care about that. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's the first time doing this. So obviously, there's going to be, you have a bunch of announcers doing Zoom broadcast.

We all know the difficulties there. They're no better at Zoom than us. There's no inside info to be running a Zoom call correctly. But Fox sucks. So boom. There's that early. Yep. The fake fans suck.

Not necessary. The interviews during games suck. Everything sucks. The fake fans are wild. Can't believe that's... I'd like to find out whoever okayed that. And then ask them, how much did you guys spend on the virtual fans? And then just point in their face and laugh.

Ooh. I would say, okay, now, Give us the money. Say, dumb! Give us that money. Yeah, I don't know. Again, you have to give a lot of credits to all the crews because they're, you know, learning on the fly as they go.

I know there's a funny minute. And the Yankees game yesterday, Paul O'Neill tried to draw on his at-home monitor. He, like, with the pen. So, again. I don't know if I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on that. No, I mean, Paul, he doesn't get it. Paul, he's not a tech guy. And when you've got that kind of stuff going on, obviously a little bit of chaos.

But yeah, man, I mean, the product on the field was pretty good until the Sunday night baseball game with the Mets. But it was a good weekend. It's a good weekend. So last year, I would do the A.L. Jake would do the NL. Then I would do the NL and he would do the AL. And we'd bring you your report. We have to change it up, obviously.

Today I'm taking the East region and three games from the Central. Jake will finish the Central. take the West. As always, if you are a fan of a team, you know more about your team than we know. You watched more of your team than we did. Now, I watched a lot of baseball this week, but I didn't watch every game. Wanted? No, Jake?

Why? It's impossible. It's impossible. That's why. It really is. So you're a diehard Indians fan, you know more of the Indians than we do. If you're die hard Cubs, you get it. But anyway, we did, uh, I did a, I did a lot of, you know,

lot of research and form myself to the best of my abilities. Good. I'm going to bring it to the people. Good. If you're a Cubs fan, I may know more about the Indians than you do. And that's the rough. That's the rub. That's there it is.

All right. Here we go. Here is your Eastern Region report. The Yankees faced off against the Washington Nationals. The Yankees took game one. It got rained out, but they get the win. The Washington Nationals take game two. Yankees come from behind in late innings to take the third game.

his first win of the season as a Yankee. Soto and Strasbourg, both got scratched late in the game. That's sad, but not as bad as the Marlins news. Baltimore and Boston faced off, Jake. The Orioles lost game one, but they go on to win games two and three against the Red Sox. Boston starters Perez and Weber, Weber, combined for 10 earned runs in eight and eight and two-thirds innings. That ain't good, but we knew the Boston staff wasn't good. the Jays and the Rays and the A's battle. Jays take game one. The Rays take game two and three.

And the Rays won the series on a wild finish in Tampa. They came back in the bottom of the ninth inning on a bang, bang play at first. Not sure if you saw this, Jake. Out the game ends and the Jays take the series. Safe. The game is tied. Head first slide into first with the pitcher covering. I mean, as bang, bang as it gets, they go to replay.

He's safe. Toronto takes the lead. top 10. They're going to win the series after all. Didn't even matter. Nope. Ray's come back in the bottom of the 10th. Win the series. Get two wins. Oh, I got to loop this, huh? Loop it. Loop the song. Getting loopie. Let's go. Let's run the song back because I'm still going. Here we go. All right. There we go. Rotono on the music. Mikey Rotuno. Miami Marlins. They took two out of three against Phillies and contaminated the locker. And that's a poor joke and pad taste.

We take it back. I take it back immediately. They just kind of blew them out in the third game. They scored 11 runs. I have a little secret for you. Their shortstop, Miguel Rojas, is that his name? He made a highlight, yeah. I love him.

I don't know too much about him, but I was watching all the highlights. I love him. It might be my favorite non-Yanky maybe. He's climbing the ladder. The Braves and Mets scored off two really, really good games. Mets won the first game on the DeGrom start. Then Edwin Diaz blows a save. and then Pretty Ricky blows the start

and the Braves win that. Moving on to the Central, the Tigers and the Reds squared off. The Tigers won two games, Jake, despite all of the Reds, top three starters, just shoving. Yeah. I mean, Castillo, Sonny, and Bauer did the damn thing.

They all only allowed one earned run, but Michael Lorenzen blew both games in the pen for them. So bummer. He's got three starters looking at him. Like, what the fuck? Indians and the Royals squared off. The Indians,

won two of those games. Again, a team with top heavy starters, Ohio, I guess. Ohio just has the starting pitcher, Bieber, Cleve, and Cookie, all with great lines. The Royals did win one game in the middle there, and it was the new extra-winning rule. Bunt sacrifice, sack fly. Best ex-changing team in the league. Yeah, yep, and then the Brewers and the Cubs, they had some fun. Kyle Hendricks shoved.

Brewers take the middle game, and then the Cubs just kind of crush in game three. to win the series, and that is your eastern region and half of the central wrap-up. Hoorah. Good job, James. Okay, so a couple things that jumped out. Well, A, it was my game of the day, the Rays and the Jays, chaos, and just that whole game. I mean, the facts and information that come out of the game, I felt bad for Shun Yamaguchi, his first MLB appearance is in extra innings, runner on second, against the race,

walk, triple, see ya. So that's pretty brutal. And that was fun because, again, so much talk about the Baby Js and how they want to compete and be in the East this year. And they, you know, had a chance to really win a series against the race in Tampa. And then just like that with the wild finish.

They were about to. Like twice they were about to. Crazy. Anything else jump out? What else can I tell you about? There's a couple, dude. I mean, I would say, you know, the Reds and their three-headed monster doing their thing is awesome. But this is the team that we were looking.

We said, hey, they're probably the most talented team in the Central, but we need to see them win. Their three dudes shove, and they lose two out of three. What's that? MLB update? Yankees thing. What's the update? What do you got?

Their game in Philly's probably canceled. No game tonight? Probably not. clears up our schedule. Changes the schedule. Maybe they just deep clean it, fumigate it a bunch of ways, and then run a double header later on. Or they find a new venue.

Yeah, we'll see. That'll be a- I'm seeing everyone get in over their heads with worry and concern and thoughts. I'm putting up a wall and just letting news come to me. I'm honestly, I'm going to do my best not to think about it at all. Okay. It sucks, but you can think your way crazy. You can screw yourself into the ground.

I'm not going to do it. No, it's, we'll see which way it goes. just got a text from my girlfriend, Jess, the Marlin's sad face. So that sums it up. That sums it up. That sums it up. From the games this weekend, I think the other things that jump out, like I was saying with the Reds, three-headed monster,

yet they come away with two losses to the Tigers. That's kind of unacceptable. And then Metz Braves, man. Edwin Diaz looking fantastic, looking like he might have figured it out. Did you hear the stat on the home run? The pitch that Osuna hit out, he struck Osuna out with, game one. So as soon as looking middle away, fastball,

Edwin Diaz has never ever had that pitch in that spot at that location, at that speed, get barreled. Never. The first time it ever gets barreled, game-tying home run. I mean, it's a really good pitch.

And I was reading all these stats about how he's just the unluckiest pitcher in the league. And he does, he let out the relieved smile, which we saw Sonny Gray do or all this Chapman do. I don't care about that. He did look kind of sinister the way he did it just because he was like, and I think the, kind of his face. The bigger problem was, too,

he gave, well, he gave the press conference, which again, is kind of right, but kind of wrong, but he was like, yeah, you know, I kind of threw a good pitch, and, you know, New Yorkers don't want to hear that, especially Mets fans. I know that Edwin Diaz is, is unlucky, and, like, his stats, like, he was literally, by stats, he was the unluckiest pitcher in baseball all of last year. Right.

Like, he shouldn't have the results he had. I'd take him out of the closer roll, just so that if he does let up a run or a burden, like he doesn't have to face the media and the scrutiny all the time. Like just let him pitch in a situation where everything's not on the line. And it may be, you know, and like say like, hey, dude, we know you're unlucky. We just want to get you a little like more relaxing outing just once.

You got Patancis. Put him back there. Yeah. But I mean, the pitch, he'd never had that pitch barreled up. And I'll soon got him on it. So it sucks. Yeah, it's tough because they, they, They traded a decent amount for him.

You know, that year he was special. He was so special. And they're trying to tap into that. I mean, you know, as a 24-year-old, a 196 ERA led the league 57 saves, 124 strikeouts in 73 innings. So they're trying to tap into that again. And the part that's even more brutal, I mean, is one pitch. I mean, if Azuna takes, it might be a ball even.

If you throw the slider and bounce it, maybe Azuna goes over it. And we'd all be sitting here saying, like, hey Diaz looks better that Mets bowl. Literally everyone who was watching that Mets game had their tweet like ready to go like wow, the Mets bullpen actually looks pretty good. And then with one pitch, two outs, two strikes, the whole narrative changes. They get blown out in the next game and that's how you lose a series real quick. You see Clevenger was mad in the Indians Royals game? I mean, he gave up back-to-back jacks and that was all.

I think he went seven in his pitch, two runs, I think, I believe. Six or seven. Six or seven. And then, you know, they go to extras and they bunt them over and then there was like a line out and that's the run. And then they don't score. And it's, Clef was saying it was stupid. Oh, yeah. He was saying, you know, it's so hard to get a runner to second on these back end relievers to just grant that changes everything.

And you really, you really mess with the reliever because, you know, they feel like they have to pitch different and all that. Whatever. It's an interesting rule. I think it's going to be adapted into MLB after the season in like the 13th inning. Like I hope they give us like 10, 11, 12 clean, but I do think it's going to, it's ending games quick. And we've heard some players say, like, we don't want to play 16 in 16 innings and 16 games and then 16nings.

So I'm preparing myself. I hope they give us the 10, 11, 12 clean, and then 13 would do this, or at least 10.11. I think the stats say, I think you'll get 1011. Yeah. I hope. Yeah.

But I do think it's coming in baseball at some point. They're not going to just let it be regular, regular until you end. And then you have pitchers pitching and you have slop fest and you have, you know, 10, 16 inning games a year or five, you know. Yeah. So prepare yourself. It makes sense for that reason. And yeah, it's tough. It's the rules.

I mean, it's a clear, it's a big time advantage for the home team. I wonder if you start seeing road teams maybe playing a little more aggressively. The Royals were home. Whatever that means. That's what I'm saying. Well, no. The Royals were the home team? I believe so.

Okay. Yeah, I think the home team has a big league. I mean, you get to see what happens. It's the classic, I mean, batting second in the inning. That's why, you know, why the home team does it. So, but yeah, I don't know. I wasn't pissed off as a lot of the players. I mean, I very much get it.

If I was a player, I think I would be. But, yeah, it's here for now. We saw it around the league. Boston gets junked. Yanks Nats was kind of fun. Yanks saved their series real late in that game. They were getting dominated by Corbin. I think that's all I got.

That second Brewers' Cubs name. That was a national game. That was fun for a little bit. The Cubs had a couple chances to make it a little closer. It didn't happen. There's a bit of a scrap. They can just hear each other jaw and at each other. Yeah.

What did you say? What did you say? What did I say? What did I say? What were you thinking about? Yeah. What did I think? And that's what happened in that game.

Yeah. Can you finish out the Central and bring me to the West? Because some of these series, I know what happened in the first two games. Yesterday I was watching the Yanks tapped out. I need your help. Let's do it. Finishing up in the Centrale, as we like to say. How about a little Cardinals Pirates for you?

The cards take the first two. Wayno. Diggs deep, dominates game two. And then the Pirates, they get their manager, Derek Shelton, his first win on the final game. White Sox, Twins, this was mentioned briefly before. Twins, they put up 10, they put up. They put up 10 in the first game, 14 in the last game, win both of those games. White Sox took the middle game.

Twins lineup looks stupid, stupid fast. In the West, Wild Wild West, Angels A's take the bookends, 7-3, 6-4. Angels win the middle game. Shohei Otani, yikes. We'll be talking about him later. Mike Trout hit a home run. He's good. Mariners Astros, and they had that walk-off, the Grand Slam walk-off on opening night.

Matt Olson, that was pretty nice. My guy, Matt Olson. Mariners Astros. Astros dominate the first two, eight, two, seven, two. And then the Mariners sneak one out, seven, six. They'll be finishing off that series today. Same with the Angels and the A's four gamers. D-backs, Padres, seven-two pods, five-one pods, and then the debacks are down later.

They're going to be the only winless team in baseball. No, a little rally, a little Catelle Marte. Sack Fly, four-three D-backs, and they're going to finish off four games as well. Rockies, Rangers, the Jake Bowl, you were all waiting for. Rangers take game one. One nothing. Rocks. Come back. Three, two, and then win the rubber match, five, two. Rocks take the series. My rocks. Trevor Story. A couple yobos, one of the most underrated guys in baseball. Probably, dude. And then finishing up, finishing up.

Finishing up. Giants, Dodgers, Dodgers dominate the first two games. It's 8-1. It's 9-1. These giants stink. And then Gabe Kapler defies the gods. Five-four Giants win in the third game. and then 3-1 Giants, they split the four games set with the Dodgers, and that's the West with a little central round-up. I'm going to be honest with you. I didn't know the Giants won the last two games. Right?

How about that? Oh, that's the first thing that I'm looking at. So what happened with the... So the Saturday game, the Giants went up early. It was 5-1, and I actually tweeted out because I think it is exciting this year. When one of the big teams goes down decently early, I think those games are going to be fun to watch. Because they're scratching a claw.

The big teams are locked in this year. And, you know, I think they're really going to be going for wins in those games. Or other days, it might be getaway days or just kind of get it out of your system. So the Dodgers fought back a little bit, but Giants won that 5 to 4. And then yesterday's game, they get 3 to 1. Giants, hey, any team pitches a little bit, it's easier to win. So, yeah, I wonder because the Dodgers were peacocking pretty hard early. And now here we are.

Dude, it's pretty funny looking at this line from the Sunday game. A lot of teams used a lot of relievers. That's what I found when I was going through. The 30-man roster, a lot of teams utilized a lot of relievers, which is fine. But the Giants throw out. Drew Smiley, Sean Anderson, Wandi Peralta, RICO, Sam Coonrod, Tyler Rogers, and Trevor Gott, right? Yeah.

How many of those names impress you in 2020 right now? I'm not trying to be, like, just right now. Impress is a tough word. Okay, so that's fine. That's a great answer. Okay. And you got Urius on the Dodgers, Bruce St. Graterall, young, but got the arm. Pedro Obias.

Like, those are supposed to be a good bullpen. Yeah, Alexander and Kenley had good innings. It's good for the Giants. Yeah, it's a little bit of the bullpen generation. And, man, you go through a lot of these box scores. There's a lot of two innings, two winnings, one innings. A lot of Leavis. It's 1.1.1. It's insane. I mean, you know, Blue Jays raised from before I clicked on that box

score and you're like, what? Snell started. They only got two out of them. Dude, I don't know. I don't know who these giants are. Who the fuck is Darren rough? I think he was a prospect. I think he was a Phillies guy. And then he, uh, oh, we got, oh, that's me. Producer BVD with his balls in his throat, nervous that he was making that noise. That was Poppy Gordo with the volume on. Darren Ruff's been in the league for six years. Well, he was a big prospect. He went overseas and then he came back.

But yeah, man, I mean, this Giants team is pretty funky. They're clearly in a rebuild. And again, there really is something to this season with, you know, in the first three games, no team having a loss. I think it's the first time since the 1950s. I think that is related to the shortened season. And the heightened, like, hey, we just can't start. are terrible.

Darren Ruff stole it back, too. You like that? Oh, yeah. The A's and Angels was fun. You had to walk off Grand Slam. That first game against the A's and Angels was really fun. Shohei has a terrible opening series, man. One for five in his game where he hit, thrown out at third base with, I think it was,

in my opinion, poor base running. You shouldn't have been going on contact. You're at second anyway, and you're fast as hell. And then, I mean, the pitching is obviously a nightmare. So, yeah, our early sleeper MVP, tough, 0.05 earn runs, three walks, zero Ks. It was a value pick. The fastball miles per hour were down, big time. Nice job by Andresi out of their bullpen.

He kept them in that game, 5.2 earn runs. That would be one of the better starts from Sunday. So pretty huge that they had him able to piggyback. And the Angels fought, but man, I almost put them, you know, What's going on with the Rendon? What this series could have been for them and what they ended up with. Like I put in the same thing as the Reds almost. Like the Reds, your three horses shoved against the Tigers.

You should have won three games. The Angels, you give up a walk-up grand slam and then Shoah. I mean, you know, you can only put so much junk on him. I believe they're one of the four-game series, though. Right, right, right. So they still can split it. You're right. So they'll be finishing that up today.

Monday, but again, like they could be going in today either having already won the series or, you know, worst case splitting. And now they're hoping for a split. Yep. Dude, the Padres are fun. And I was going to give an award, but I'd just say it now, shout out to all the new uniforms.

Brewers, new uniforms. I love those. Padres, I absolutely love. Yeah. And they make you want a root for them. I love them so much. And I thought there was another team that had new uni. There was a Dodgers baby blue floating around that.

I don't know if that's. you're bad or not because they're pretty traditional. How about Manea and Fire's not getting it done for Oakland? It's tough, man, and there was so much of that this weekend, and it's clearly because, I mean, spring training is for pitchers. We've said that a lot on here, and if you're a baseball fan, you kind of know that. I mean, James Paxton for the Yankees, you know, he was clearly just not right. His quote after the game was hilarious.

He's like, I just didn't feel great. his fastball was down a couple miles per hour so these are normally things that happen in spring training and you kind of shrug Norm in the chat rangers with a baby blue uni you know these are normal spring training things where it's like okay you shrug and then you say all right let's see if Paxton's fastball's up next start

and if it's not then you're like okay now I'm interested teams don't have a lot of time for this this year like if Shohei comes out no next start and he looks you know bad yeah I don't know know.

And the other story, I think, that we have to at least touch on is the twins put up 27 runs in three games. They, uh, oh, 27 runs. It's stupid. Kepler had two in the first game, I think, and that Cruz got a couple, and they, uh, they just mall. I mean, was, uh, twins? So someone from the White Sox tell me, was Rinaldo Lopez supposed to be an opener for Geo?

Mm-mm. He's supposed to, he's just a straight start, and Geo can. came out? I believe so. I will be corrected on that, but I know, you know, Rinaldo is supposed to be a big part of the staff this year. And maybe with an off day. So they had Gio just ready? I mean, obviously, Ronaldo's a starter, but like, I just saw Gio come in and I was like, was that by design or it was that bad and Gio was just ready because the off day? Yeah. Whatever. And then the Rocks and the Ranger, shout out to Lance Lent.

Shout out to Lance, a little pitcher's duel on day one, him and, him and Hermann-Marquez. there was some good defense in that series. Everyone saw the, I think Gary Hampson robbed a Homer. I think it was the first batter of the game, Shinsu Chu. And then my rocks, baby, if they pitch, they can win. How about every game this series being probably the under? Every game was probably the under you think? I mean, it's 1-0, 3-2, and then 5-2.

That would be the only one in question, and it's Rangers Rockies. So that's a... And, oh, and Klouber. Cluber. And I was going to jump back to the Astros, series a little bit because that was the huge news last night. Verlander, you know, reported Bobby Nightingale out for the season and then JV coming back and saying not necessarily, I mean, as Bob Nightingale is a guess. He's out for the season. I mean, most likely. I mean, this is, I mean, this is a story told

a million times reported that it's forearm strain and then the, like, Jordan Montgomery, so many, Luis Severino, like, so many pitchers, never, ever, ever, ever, trust a player about his own ability to recover from an injury. It's true. So could he make it back? Sure. And obviously I'm giving all Yankees answers because that's the team I follow the most. And some people get upset by that, but eat a bug.

I mean, you can't trust Verlander here. No. He has no idea. It's a shot. It's a 60-game season. I wouldn't say trust, but I'd say if there is any pitcher that I think you would trust, it would be a pitcher who's been through it and not a kid who's trying to make the team. Well, I'll tell you this.

I'll tell you, if there's any a guy that needs to test out the alternative method, I mean, he's old. If he goes against Tommy John, can he get a year off and come back? It's probably like, you know. A lot of speculation. Oh, tons.

It's all speculation, but I would bet he doesn't pitch more than he does. You can't trust a player with his own body. Yeah. Sounds weird, but you can't. It's true, but it was classic Bobby Knight, throwing it out when. But he wasn't the first one. I think he was the first to say it was ended.

I thought it was someone from the Houston Chronicle. I think everyone else was forearm strain, forearm strain. Like not looking good. And Bobby put the nightcap on it as he always does. Mariners got the win in that series. They're doing four today. Yeah. No, a little extra shout out to my rocks.

I mean, they held the Rangers to five runs in three games. Yeah. I mean, Klober only threw 18 pitches. Yeah, that's tough. And I saw someone else in the chat that Rinaldo might have been in. injury related when he left. So, man, a lot of... It's not good.

A lot of tough early pitching performances in the season, and it's, I mean, it's very clearly linked to lack of spring training, and that's why we have 30-man rosters. Well, okay. Let's move on to some other segments. I forget the official sound drop for this one, but we're going to go to... Standout Performance. That's what it was.

Standout performance. All right, I'm going to go first. I take it. Go. I had two guys I was eyeing, but I'm giving it. to Kyle Hendricks. Nice. Complete game shutout on opening day for your Cubs.

I mean, the professor out there, he's got more velocity now. This Velo's up, but he's still tricking him with that two seamer, that sinker. I mean, just nasty. Started at the end. Nasty pitch. I think out of the nine innings he pitched, he had six, one, two, three innings. I don't think he ever faced five batters in an inning. So at max, only one guy got on base.

and you know what the best part about this is talk about making the debut easy for the manager you got a brand new manager it's his first game ever no decisions there was actually a moment in the in the last inning where rossie came out for a mound visit with one batter left and kendricks was like i think they were saying like this is your last guy and kenters was like oh i'm good i'm good one more guy is my last guy okay fine and then he gets the ground out i'll get him I mean, you see how many groundouts he had? Like the ninth inning, three groundouts. The eighth inning, three ground outs.

Seventh inning, two groundouts. Just all ground outs. The fifth inning, one, two, three out, three ground outs. He did strike out the side and the fourth, which is crazy because it was Yelich, Keston, and Smoke struck out the side. I don't know. Just very, I mean, a staff that people are a little weary of,

but just shoved. Yeah, I overlooked. Hendricks a little bit, and now he's got a little extra on that fastball. I mean, that just helps everything he does. He was a great pitcher without it with like 88 mile per hour fastball. Now he's touching 94, so we'll see if those punches can come out. He was in position to get a Maddox, too, a complete game shutout, less than 100 pitches. But Arcia opened up the 9th with a single, and then Yelich had a 7 pitch at bat versus him.

Damn it. So that's why I think Rossi came out. I was like, hey, you broke 100 now. it's opening day. This is a little tricky. Hopefully this doesn't linger, and then people are yelling like, oh, you ruined Hendricks for the next couple starts

just because you wanted to complete it. You can't do that, but, I mean, awesome. That is easily, easily my standout performance. I have it locked in. Locked. Oh, I think the maybe bigger thing for some baseball fans is I think the over-under on starting pitcher complete games this year was

one and a half in Vegas. So Kyle Hendricks, one more. You got 10 starts to go complete game, my man. Just one. They didn't think anyone would get two? No. I think it was the Vegas number. That's cool. Which is just an interesting way to think about it. And yeah, man, if Hendricks can pump that, big for the cubbies, big for him. Have a year, kid. Go get it. Go shove. Who's your standout performance? My standout performance, there was a couple pitchers that absolutely shoved, and I didn't pick them. Oh. Because they shoved against lesser teams,

and the pitchers are ahead right now. So I jump back to my guy, Jose Ramirez. He hits two yakers yesterday for the Indians to help close out the series, four RBIs, four runs. And I think more importantly, I was looking for guys that are going to impact this season.

And, you know, I know we've been talking Lindor trade rumors, but it seems like that would be a whole thing, especially with how the season's going already. Man, if Jose Ramirez, is right. If he's the Jose Ramirez who put up MVP numbers the second half the season, if he's the Jose Ramirez who's finished, I think, top five in the MVP voting twice, with Lindor, who was making crazy plays on defense this weekend and just being Frankie

Lindor, if he's right, the Indians are not necessarily contender to the degree of, you know, Yankees, Dodgers, blah, blah, blah, expected contender, but they are in it. You can lose a playoff series to them. Jose Ramirez is right. So I gave it to him. That's what I've been saying. If their top guys are firing, and all their pitchers did. And they weren't. He also got hit by a pitch. You didn't even mention that. Yeah, he liked it. Well, he liked the pain. It was in the middle of a rally, so I think he didn't.

He liked the pain, but he was mad that he couldn't get more RBIs. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. He got a hit in every game as well, which I think is always good. Like, he contributed every game. Contributes that. I think his first at bat was a double, maybe. Sure. I don't know. But yeah, that's a good. That's a good stand-up. performance. I think there's one guy that got snubbed. He was going to be my second, but you can only give two. You can only give two. That's why, and you're right, and I think he's going to be mentioned in our next segment. Okay. Well, I don't have the sound bite for this section. It's a dirt nasty song. It's like, what was it? Dirt Nasty's in Fuego. That means on fire, baby. Like Waygo. There

go. We'll get the drop. We'll get it. In Fuego, I mean, Kyle Hendricks is on here. Shane Beaver's on here. Shane Bieber's the guy who got jobbed, 14Ks. But the thing that gives me is Trevor Bauer, I mean, did 13Ks, both. I mean, it's the Tigers and the Royals to lesser hitting teams. So if you gave, when I

was looking at them and Jose Ramirez, give me Jose Ramirez. Okay. That's how I did it. Sorry, everyone. You want to talk about your guy next? I don't know who's on the sheet. I switched. I don't know who you're talking. Miguel Rojas. Oh, dude is on fire. You're a big, Miggy Rojas guy now. Did he test positive?

We don't know yet. I don't think we've gotten any word on who it was yet. I haven't heard many names. 11 of 33 is the number of those turned. So this is what I need Marlins fans to do. Is he worth loving? Because I have surface level knowledge of Mickey Rojas. Sure.

But he looks like that one actor who always plays like a pseudo bad guy, but then a nice guy. Okay. I'm just blanking on his name. I think he was in Dexter. I don't know. And, I mean, he goes seven for ten. So his batting average is currently 700. He had a big three-run home run.

Five RBIs. He had a triple and a double. He basically hit for the cycle in this series. Seriously? Love that. But he's on fire, for sure. Yeah, I mean, as good of a stateline you can have after three games. He's currently leading baseball in runs, hits, triples, batting average, OBP, and OPS Plus.

Yeah. So that gets you there. And, yeah, he had the really nice double play at shortstop. He's smoothed at short. I do have one qualm with it. Huh? So did you see that MLB was comparing him to Jordan? Because he came over the bag and did like the in the air.

No, I don't even know if I know what you're talking about. So he turned a double play and it was not, he like, so know how if you're a shortstop and you're kind of doing the unassisted double play and the runners coming in, you kind of prepare the jump. Mm-hmm. He did a big one. He jumped. Okay.

I think I have it coming up, but it's MLB's website. And it was nice. But so MLB highlighted it. on Twitter and Instagram, and they did it with the MJ logo? Because he's a Nike athlete, I think. The only thing that got me is he's on the Marlins, Derek Jeter, a guy with his own throwing logo. Why don't we keep it there?

Why'd we have to go to MJ? I think he's wearing Jordan cleats as he does it, which is the connection. Yeah, I don't know. Keep it in baseball. When you can keep it in baseball. And it looks like the dunk, right? I mean, all right, I love my dude, McGue Grohast. That was unnecessary.

A little unnecessary. Cool, though. Cool. I mean, I don't know if I love him yet. I need more info. Nicknamed listed as Miggy Row. So. Miggy Row?

Yeah. Okay, cool. Pretty big. Five hitters had seven hits in their first three games. Five hitters had seven hits in the first three games. So those are the Enfuego batters. Nelson Cruz, he also popped three home runs and 10 RBIs. So he's like the most on fire.

He could have been a standout performance for the series. Sure. Jose Anglesias from Baltimore also with seven hits. Zero home runs. Justin Turner, seven hits, zero home runs, but four doubles for Turner. It's pretty good. And then Jackie Bradley Jr., J.BJ, seven hits. Yeah.

So those are, I think, the most worth mentioning. Yeah, early snubs, Luis Castillo had a pretty nice start himself. You know what else I want to mention? What else do you want to mention, Jim? I don't know, I don't know if this is in Fuego. Joey Votto had a really nice start. Good for him. He's good. Yeah.

Tommy Fam. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know why I'm mentioning him? The stolen bases. Four stolen bases? Yeah. That's cool. He had a, there was some crazy stat.

He had like 25% of the league stolen bases at one point or something. Good, good, dumb earlier in the year stat. Four stolen bases in the first three games is pretty awesome. I've got trivia question. He only had two hits. He got four stolen bases, four walks up. Boing. Point.

Trivia question. Trivia time. How many players in Major League Baseball as of today have a stolen base? 20. 27. Nice. 27. That's cool. I forgot about Santiago Espinal.

I was going to say I thought you might have forgot about him. I did, I did. I also forgot about Travis Jukowski, Jankowski. So that's all. Everyone else I knew. Minus the other five. A couple hot boys who shoved Danesby Swanson and Eric Hosmer, two guys that both their teams were looking for a little extra sum from them this year.

They get off to good start so good. Yep. How about that? The opening day talking baseball bump was pretty serious. I don't know if people saw that. That was pretty for real. The Friends of the Pod bump. Yeah.

Do we have the... I'll read it because it's worth it. Like, you guys listened all off-season to our guests. They just kicked ass on opening day. Jack Flaherty off the top of my head. Bieber, not Bieber. Lance Lynn. Lance Lynn.

David Dahl. I have it. I won't do everything. I'll just give you the final line for hitters. On opening day, talking baseball and talking Yan's guests, we're 13 for 26. at the plate. That's 500 batting average folks. Two home runs, two doubles, 10 RBIs. Okay, and then we're talking one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight guys.

Yeah. Hap, Mercado, Dahl, Hoskins, Mustakis, Wade, Bizio Swanson. If you haven't heard the interviews, go check them out. And then we had three pitchers perform on opening day. And the final line there was 14 innings pitched two earn runs. Yeah. 15 K's. Flaherty, Trevor, May, and Lance Lynn. And I think lastly and most importantly, who's leading the league in walks? Friends of the Pod bump. I don't know. Reese Hoskins. Seven walks.

What? Seven walks in three games. They lost the series. So maybe try to get a hit every once in that. 600 OBP. I like it. All right. Something we're going to do on these episodes is a weekly check-in on the race to 20 home runs.

Roosevelt's and John Boy Media are teaming up to bring this information. your way. We have serious statistical computers analyzing and pulling the information that, you know, Roosevelt's and John LeMedia helped create. That was a computer working. We put a bet that someone will hit 20 home runs. It's going to happen. We're keeping track of it. Here is your leaderboard. Nelson Cruz clearly in the top hitting three in the first three games. And then we had the leader of this decade. We had the leader of the decade hit the most home runs. leader of this decade and last decade. Yes.

Pretty nuts. That is crazy. He has the most home runs in the 2020s and the most home runs in 2010s. Big time. Nelson Tools. Nelson Prues. 16 guys hit two home runs and I'm just going to shout him out real fast. Rio Ruiz, Ian Hap, Marcelo Zuna, Joey Vado, Jose Ramirez,

Lori Garcia, Jesus Aguilar, Giacardo Stanton, Phil Gosselin, Max Muncie, the Funky Monkey, Kyle Lewis, Didi, Do You Love Me? Gregorius, C.J. Cron, Anthony Rizzo, and Trevor, Jake, Story. Now, out of those 16 guys that hit multiple home runs in the opening series, what are the odds, the guy who breaks 20 is among them? Ooh. Because I have Cruz and Stanton as my two. I'm ion.

Cruz, Stanton. I mean, don't sleep on Muncie. That funky Monty. That funky Monty. I mean, maybe if Kepler got well, Leah, but yeah, I think, you know, Cruz and Stanton are the obvious ones that jump out to you. And Phil Gosselin. All of those guys, I mean, Nelson Cruz is on pace for 60.

So. And that's the computer I was talking about that we built with Roosevelt. Roosevelt's R-S-V-L-T-S, discount code Johnboy, race to 20, the Homer Board. Homer Board. The Homer Board. All right, let's get sad. Slump watch.

Slump watch. Slump watch. Slump watch. Slump watch. This guy is shock. Slump watch. Early in the year, you know? Yep, early in the year.

One first series, slump watch is tough. Tough, tough. But you got to put, you got to watch out. Now, if you guys don't remember the rules, your guy goes on slump watch. It's just we're watching. Just be mindful. This guy's going through.

tough times. Right. Now, he can get himself off slump watch or he can be so bad that he just falls into your bad watch. Yeah. Which we don't even watch anymore. Discarded. Slump watch.

Like the Romans. Yeah, like the Roman, the misfigured Romans. Right. 300. 300. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is an ad for the movie 300.

Thank you for that, Gerald Butler. All right. Jake, the way I have this down and Kyle, who is a key piece of Jambo Media team, helped us, but it's first season, so I have it pretty easily here. I found guys who played every game, had 10 or more played appearances, and did not notch a single hit. Oh, you went that route, okay.

Now, do you know how many there were? That didn't notch a single hit. They played all three games, 10 or more played appearances, didn't get a single hit. 10 or more, I'm going with like four? Eight. Oh, wow. Yep, eight.

Okay. None, no team had two of these guys, which is good. That is good. So the spread the love out. Now, do you want any more info? How many of them were 10? I feel a lot of them were 10 at bats, now that I'm looking. No, some were more.

Do you want me to find the guy with the most at bats that one hit list? That was one of my hits, hints, tips, and clothes. Only two. Only two were 10 at bats. And only one guy had, or, and I'm doing played appearances, not at bats. Played appearances, gotcha. That changes my. my search.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh,

Uh, Enie O for 11, with one walk, and zero hits in 13 appearances. That's tough. It's not good. It's not good.

Not ideal. Uh, the most K's was Ryan McMahon. McMahon. McMahon goes 0 for 10 with seven strikeouts. Hmm. Benintendi in Boston, O for 10.

Benny. With five K's. The other guys on this list are Nikki Delmonico. Yeah. Hunter Pence, Brian Reynolds, and Carlos Santana. And Nick Ahmed. Yeah, I kind of went a different route with it. Because, I mean, I was looking at the big guys.

The big guys. The big guys. You know, eyes out for Mookie. Three for 20. Three for 20. Not where he wants to be. That's not good. Chris Bryant, Jim, one for 14.

How did you, were able to sort it? I search by at bats, and then I just look at the stats from there and whatever jumps out. How? So, okay. Search the other way. Hit it again. It hits again. Oh, that's how I used to do it.

Thanks for reminding me. No problem. Thanks. My friend, that is live producing. And the other two big names that jumped out. And again, it's Slump Watch. Yelich Endeavors, both hitting 077 Earth. Very early.

Okay. They're big names. So I just, let me add those. I throw them out there. We don't have this officially because we got to add them to list. They're not officially, yeah. They are officially. Alonzo's on here.

What did he end up with? Pistol Pete? Yeah. Su, Su, Su, Su, Su go. He getting me hits in the last game? Pete Alonzo. It's like he's one for 11? Yeah.

Yeah, I guess, you know, he's a big name. And then, I mean, Otani, Paxton, Gialito. Yeah. All one start each, but we'll watch. I think we have a lot of guys, but it is just three. games. A lot of guys should be able to get themselves off this list like that. I hope so. I think the biggest ones for the pitchers, Otani, like, what's up? Paxton. Like, are you okay? Paxton? Are you okay? And then, yeah, Golito is the only other one

that I really have circled because, you know, he's supposed to be their ace. He's supposed to be their one. And against the twins, you know, their rival in division, 3.27 runs. can't be doing that. Cannot be doing there. Don't want it. All right. We have a Who Got Mad? I had a great soundbite for that.

What would it used to be? You got mad. I got mad. I got that. I got that. I got that. I got to listen to an old episode. Okay.

I think it used to be like an old coach screaming. Like Earl Weaver screaming at a... Hmm. Sounds familiar. But maybe not too. Someone listens probably got to remember. We didn't listen to old episode to find it. My soundboard, I lost it in the office.

I'd get a new one. forget all these. Who got mad? Who got mad? Diamondbacks manager. That's what I put on here. Yeah. Tony?

What's his name? Tony. Louvello? Louisville? Torre Louvello, I believe. I'm blanking. Did you see this? I got to do a breakdown on it.

So, Cron? Everyone's going to get mad because I'm pronouncing so many names wrong. He just straight up. He didn't get out of the way of a curveball. And they all called him on it. I'm usually don't call him out of that on that. But like, he straight up did it.

and get out of the way of a curb. I'll start running the first. I'm just like, no. Did he lean into it? I think the rule is you have to attempt to get out of the way. I think you can stand your ground. I don't think so. Okay, I'll have to check the rule book on that.

He clearly notices it, and he's got the elbow pad on, which makes it even more bullshit in my mind. That should be the rule. If you have an elbow pat, you have to try to get out of the way. Yeah. If you don't, then you can stand there and take it. Yeah, what hit by pitch rule? MLB on purpose.

That's what I'm going to Google. We'll figure out. But yeah, he got mad. And then, or no, no, no. And then Shelton and Derek Holland. The way I hear it, Derek Holland didn't even get mad. He just said, like, come on. And then the ump said, hey, shut up in the dugout.

A little bit of rabbit ears. And Holland said, no, it was me up here in the stands. Yeah. And the M said, well, you're gone. He said, okay. Yeah, fine. Cool. Kind of ideal.

Clubhouse is better anyway. Yeah. Go watch some shows. I'm out of here. Yeah. Okay, the per of the rules, a batter must make an attempt to avoid being hit. That's what I thought it was. You can't lean into it, but you have to try to get out of the way.

And he clearly did not. Did not. So it's actually, you know, the Umps really don't rarely make that call, but it's a good call. It's a good call. It's tough, man. I got to watch there. I got to do the breakdown of it. And now there's no Yankees game today.

I got time to cry. If you're hitting in a baseball hits you in any fashion. And you don't get rewarded a base. It's a very bad feeling. It is, unless, like, he knows if he did it on purpose or not. Right. You know that. And I think he did.

I remember when Buster Posey got hit last year, it was a position player pitching. He was throwing, like, 65, and he hit him in the arm. And the Posie would, like, the pitcher was laughing, and Posie just said, it still hurts, man. Yeah. Like, if you threw 65, it still hurts. And I was thinking, like, you and I throw 65 at our hardest. And if I was to throw a ball at you as hard as I could, it's not fat. It would still hurt.

It would still not feel good. It's funny that the fan's mindset is like, oh, it's only 65. That doesn't hurt. Oh, curveball. Probably still hurts. Yeah. No, does not feel good. Yeah, it's funny.

That's funny. All right. That's all I add for who got mad. We usually do call up watch, like to get you. It's just too much as you. Yeah, that's going to be hard. I'll give a shout out. They're friends slash competitors, mostly friends.

The Cespitas guys. Friends. They have a good. Well, competitors too. They have a very good Twitter chain going with everyone who's making the debut. Yeah, because they feel bad because they don't get home field. Yeah, they're getting nothing. Their family's not there and stuff like that.

It's actually low-key sat. And yeah, I mentioned my guy, Shunny Yamaguchi before Screw. Like, he's a 14, I think he's a 14-year veteran, four-time All-Star. He makes the trip overseas. He's on the Js. He might be there closer. Here you are in extra innings with a runner on second. It blows, man.

That does blow. That's tough. The other segment we sometimes do is call up watch. Who Got Mad? These are segments that don't always happen, but sometimes happen. But sometimes happen. A way to bug. Walk off watch.

I think we'll just scrap that. Walk off watch. Scrapped. Unless anyone really clamors for it. I guess there's a good one, yeah. I mean, but now with the extra innings, it's weird. Matt Olson Grand Slam on second opening day. That was cool.

Yeah, the Rays walked off. The Royals walked off. Oh, yeah. With the extra inning. Yeah, no, no walk-off watch this year. Sorry. We're out. Sorry, people.

Special year. Wow. Tough. Tough break for everyone. All right. Moving on to. Awards. So I texted Jake in the middle of the week, and I was like, dude, I know we're only supposed to give one award each.

I have so many awards to give out. Yeah. There's so. Opening day sucks because every good pitcher in baseball is on the bump. Yeah. And you just want to watch everyone. Yeah. You're like, oh, shit, that's a good matchup.

Oh, shit. Ace Furries. That's a good matchup. up ace for like because during the season when you get into the flow and ace first age is kind of rare let's do two awards each two awards each day we had enough room for two yeah okay my first award yep and I told you about this so it's not going to come as a shock which I think you know in the future yeah uh it's a waiter a Congo waiter yeah the Congo waiter of the year award a waiter from the Congo award is what it is on this on

yeah but that was you can you can spin it anyway you want yep A waiter from the Congo Award. Yeah. You know what goes to? Who's a go-to, it goes to Dylan Bundy. Want to why? Why is that?

Because in the Congo, bugs are a delicacy. And Dylan Bundy is wearing a nice outfit, and he's got a platter full of bugs, and he's walking up to your table, and he's saying, feast on this, fat boy. Why do you have to say that?

I was Dylan Bundy talking. Why do you have to say that to me? I was not me, man. He's mad at you. Dylan's pissed at me. piss of you. So Dylan Bundy served Jake just a pile of bugs. Yeah, big time. I mean, Dylan Bundy just force feeding bugs in your mouth. 6.2 innings pitch. Three hits, seven strikeouts, one run, one earned run. One of the best starts statistically in his entire career. Out duels

Sean Manaya from the Oakland Athletics. I mean, let's see his. He goes, one, two, three inning, one, two, three inning. Then he finally gave up a hit in the third, but that's, That's all. Four batters in the fourth. Hit by pitch. So four batters again. Okay, one, two, three in the sixth. And then in the seventh, he goes, he gives up a double to Piscotti.

And they pull him. Piscotti. But he gets the win. He starts the season off great. Yeah. I mean, if I had told you that going into this weekend that amongst Angel starting pitchers, that one pitcher would go 0.0 and give up five run. runs, three walks, no strikeouts.

And I told you another pitcher was going to be 6.2, 7Ks, one-earned run. I think it would have been 98% on Otani with the good start. And two on Bundy. And I say 98%, Jim, because now that we're in this world of baseball Twitter and we know a lot of the analytics people and we can sponge off of them a little bit, that was a 98th percentile start. I think Dylan Bundy's had... I mean, you right now, you're just begging.

You're saying, thank you for the bugs, Mr. Bundy. May I have another? Yes, I want Bundy bugs. That's what I've said that multiple times on the record. You think he's going to come down? If Dylan Bundy pitches well, and he can get Mike Trout into the playoffs and get Mike Trout a playoff win, I am all supportive of that. It sounds like you're doubting that he can do this again.

I'm... Hey, he changed up his pitch mix. He used his slider more, which we heard from, people inside of baseball that his slider is good and hey he's out of Baltimore he's out of the east he's out of a lot of hitters park so maybe there is a formula for him to be refreshed with a little bit of a pitch mix change in a new environment so i'm not against that the dillon bundy i saw in baltimore was a bad pitcher and i i say that and i still believe in that because he was um if dillin bundy keeps it going good i just think it's a you can't predict baseball kind of moment when bundy does that and otani does

what he did. But good for Dylan Bundy. A lot of people were tweeting at me. I appreciate it. He shoved. He served me the bugs. I will accept all of them. Awesome day for Dill. Okay. Dill pill. Do you mind if I call him that? You can call him whatever you want, man, as long as you're eating the bugs. I'm going to give out an award. All right. I'm giving out the son. You're doing it wrong award. Ooh. S-U-N or S-O-N? S-O-N. Okay. Cool. Because the other way it wouldn't make sense. Yeah, it's kind of the, it's, you know, the dad comes out, maybe he asked you to do a chore in the yard or something, you're raking leaves, and you're just trying to get it done as fast as you can, and you're just doing it all sorts of wrong. Mm-hmm.

Dad comes out with the angry yell. Son! Doing it wrong! Mm-hmm. It goes to G. Man Choy. Yeah. I mean, what a crazy story. Tell them, tell them.

I just don't get it, man. Like, it's, the computer hasn't computed, and I mentioned this on Wake and Jake this morning. Go check that out if you want. G. Man Choy, he hit a home run. Okay, that's normally of note, but not to an intense degree. He hit a home run righty, normally not even important. As of yesterday, G. Man Choy was listed as a left-handed hitter on baseball reference. He's decided to switch hit, and I don't know if it was bad splits against lefty.

I don't have the athletic article that I'm expecting to come on it, but he hits righty. He strikes out his first at bat, which that's got to be a bad feeling. Like, hey, guys, I switch hit now. No, he struck out. And then he hits a home run. And it's just insane. And I referenced this. You got a single in his third up at her walk.

And when we talked to Ann Hap this offseason, it was my first question. When you start to switch hit fascinates me. Because is it as a kid? Is it Little League? Is it high school? Is it AAU? Is it college? Like, when does it happen?

G. Man Choy started doing the hardest thing in baseball in the major leagues. So, you haven't heard. He switch hit in the KBO. Sure. So he was a professional switch hitter for a while. When he went to the Angels, they said, no, we just want lefty bat. Lefty join. They probably wanted to platoon him.

Right. And then he finally was like, but you know how you can do this? Like, in Korea. Oh, the rays must have loved that. Oh, you got more versatility for us to? Yeah. Okay. So, and then again, so just think about that.

Like we could have gone all of G-Man's Troy having no idea. He's a left-handed Major League hitter. He goes right either raise allow it. And it looks good. Hit a Homer, babe. Yeah. That's nuts. I'm trying to see if what I just said is correct.

Okay. I hope so. Someone told it to me and I'm just trusting that person. It rained on my parade a little bit, but I'll believe it. Yeah, I'm trying to read it. It's right here. There's a whole article on it, but Choi said, I'm the best hitter on the team, so it's not surprising.

Just kidding. Okay. He ended with the just kidding. Troy's the best. All right, to be clear, Troy hitting right-hand did not happen. Randomly, he toyed around with it during batting practice, summer camp, and he did switch hit a bit in the minors years ago, but not until Sunday did Troy hit right-hand in the big leagues.

It still counts for me. Yeah, it's still very much counts for me. What I told was someone, why do people got to poo-poo awesome things, and then I believe the poo-pooers? Yeah. Don't believe the poo sometimes. Don't do it. Don't believe the poo sometimes.

Good job, Gene. I'll do it. second award. Okay, quick second award. It's the Ricky Bobby Award. Mm. Mm. You know it.

Who wins it because you saw it, right? Yeah. I like keeping the award's secret. I got to do better job. We'll do better. The Ricky Bobby Award goes to Jacob de Grom. Yeah. Because that dude just wants to go fast.

Silly. I want to go fast. He didn't throw a pitch under 90 miles per hour in the game. It's crazy. And let me be clear with you. He threw off speed pitches. Yes. They just happened to be.

91 miles per hour. He threw change-ups. It's just, you know, when your fastball's 100, your change-up can be 90. Yeah. Isn't that nuts? He threw sliders. Yeah. That's what I read.

He did not throw a single pitch under 100 miles per hour. What a nut job. He's awesome, man. His Mets start was awesome to watch. That game was great. They were thrown up zeros until the Mets. Cespite at Scott went across. Remember how exciting that was?

the first NLDH home run. Yo-Yo just launched one. DeGrom's crazy, and, yeah, I mean, for the Mets, if they could go DeGrom to their good bullpen every day, that's what it looked like. Matt's threw a good start for them, and then Diaz loses that at the end. But yeah, DeGrom's stupid.

I think he's going to win his third Sanyang this year. So that's pretty good, special. According to stat, Cass, he has one pitch under 90. Oh, my. And it was the last one. God. last one. Okay. So maybe he's just doing that. Maybe the curveball 118th pitch of the day. I mean, what, what, what speed was it? Do they give you that?

81.7. That's even, that's even more sinister. Yeah. You haven't thrown that all day. He can throw, he can change speeds all the way down to 81 and he didn't all day. What a sick fuck. That's basically like at the end of the game, de Grom is like, oh, and guess what? For next time, I didn't even use this. Don't forget. Yeah. Oops. Oops. Oops. I can do this too. He's awesome. Just ending the game on like a knuckleball just to fuck with their heads. He's good.

Damn. So maybe I saw that tweet before the last pitch. Yeah. Still counts. Still counts. It's even more impressive. Yeah, it's even more impressive that he has the story cooler. Has it in his arsenal.

He doesn't use it. So that's my second award. My second quick award is called the F your segment award. Mm. F your segment. F your segment. F your segment, Brage. Your segment is effed.

For those that are new to the show, Thanks. Thank you. A. For those that are old to the show, you'll remember last year we started a segment that was say something nice about the Orioles. Because that's how bad they were.

This year, I'm giving the F-year segment award to the Orioles because they take two games at Fenway. They get blown out in the first game, and everyone says, oh, these same old Orioles. They rally. They win the next two in the Bean at Fenway. good for the Orioles And a little F your segment

F your segment F your segment Bra Brandon Hides can take us a promise lot Manager of the year Early candidate No not even Okay

He's out To be fair And he's out Just like that he's out And the last segment of the show As always is Elevator Talk One team

We're going to spin a wheel Whatever team it lands on If you're stuck in an elevator and you see someone wearing the hat of this team, Jake and I will rush to the interwebs, we'll find some news articles. You can now hold up a conversation with this fella. One, two, three, the Houston Astros.

Okay, so obviously you're going to talk about Verlander. Yeah. Obviously, you're going to talk about how much you hate that fuck John boy. Yeah. And I mean, Verlander's the real news. And you're probably, you know, believing what Verlander says right now because you want to. And I've been there.

And I've been tricked many of times trying to believe. believe a player. Yankees had a ton of injuries last year in the year before and you want to believe the player and then eventually you realize, oh shit, player's always going to say he's coming back. And you know what? Lance McCullors had a nice start. You mentioned him. He came off Tommy John, six innings pitch, six strikeouts, two earn run, a pretty nice performance by him. The other young guy, if you're trying and say like, hey, you know, I know the Astros. Kyle Tucker, who's a pretty big prospect for him. Kay, Chuck. Not as cool as C-Tuck, if we're being honest. He goes two for five, so they're trying to work him in, trying to work him in.

And then, yeah, I mean, it's the same old guys that you know from Houston. Who got off to a good start? Brantley got off to a good start. Maldonado. Maldonado off to a good start. Thank God we brought that guy back. It's going to be interesting. Again, they can go three and one against the Mariners, which is what they signed up for,

or the Mariners can split tonight. So that's an interesting game. But, yeah, the Verlander thing. And then, you know, I think the elevator gets off and you're like, hey, man, have a good day. And then you just let out a little like bang. Bang. Yeah. And then you just say, no, not Astros.

You can ask like, you can ask about Springer. He only had one hit. Out two, they only had one hit. Tough starts. But, you know. Early. Early. Is that Granky?

How'd Granky do? Granky did bad. That's not good. Yeah. Or is grunt's really loud? I didn't hear the grunts. I don't know. Because with no noise, you know, the grunts, they might have been super loud.

Someone turned to me like Lance McCullors, like, threw a ton of curveballs again in a row. Wouldn't doubt it. Wouldn't doubt it. I don't know if that was actually Lance. But, yeah, I mean, who do they play next? That's always a good conversation. Ooh, who do they play? So they go Mariners to the Dodgers.

Whoa. Okay. So they need to win this game. Huge. They need to win this game tonight. Yeah. That's got to get this win. before going to see the Dodgers.

And the Dodgers saved Walker Bueller for the first game of that series? Saved or Bueller wasn't ready? I think he had a slower camp. I'm going saved. I thought he had a slower camp. I think it's a little strategery. I think they were playing the Giants. I think if they wanted him out there for the Giants, I think it could have happened.

The fact they saved him for one game after. Interested, I don't know. You know? It's all guess. I think a little call him. Yeah, get off the other room. We've got to grab this one tonight before we play those Dodgers. That's a good elevator talk.

So there you go. There you have it. That's the first series recap in the books. Thank you for listening. We appreciate you. We'll be back tomorrow. Trevor will be on the show. Or Wednesday?

Wednesday. Trevor will be on the show. Talk about some news and find out his thoughts on everything. Jake sucks.